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1676b TN: 32477 STI 29275
The TESS science processing operations center
Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy IV (AS110)
Jon Jenkins, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Co-authors
Joseph D. Twicken, SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Sean McCauliff, Wyle Labs/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Jennifer Campbell, Wyle Labs/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Dwight Sanderfer, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
David Lung, Millenium Engineering/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Masoud Mansouri-Samani, SGT, Inc./NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Forrest Girouard, Logyx LLC/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Peter Tenenbaum, SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Todd Klaus, SGT, Inc./NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Jeffrey C. Smith, SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Douglas A. Caldwell, SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
A. Dean Chacon, Millenium Engineering/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Christopher Henze, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Cory Heiges, General Dynamics/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
David Latham, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA
Edward Morgan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Daryl Swade, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Stephen Rinehart, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Roland Vanderspek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
500 word abstract
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was selected by NASA’s Explorer Program to
conduct a search for Earth’s closest cousins starting in late 2017. Tess will conduct an all-sky
transit survey of F, G and K dwarf stars between 4 and 12 magnitudes and M dwarf stars within
200 light years. TESS is expected to discover ~1,000 small planets less than twice the size of
Earth, and to measure the masses of at least 50 of these small worlds. Because these stars are
typically 10X closer and 100X brighter than the Kepler’s, they are much more amenable to
follow-up observations and characterization. Indeed, the James Webb Space Telescope should
be able to characterize the atmospheres of many of the TESS discoveries.
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The TESS science pipeline is being developed by the Science Processing Operations Center
(SPOC) at NASA Ames Research Center based on the highly successful Kepler pipeline. Like the
Kepler pipeline, the TESS pipeline will provide calibrated pixels, simple and systematic error-
corrected aperture photometry, and centroid locations for all 200,000+ target stars, observed
over the 2-year mission, along with associated uncertainties. The science data will be processed
on the NAS Pleiades Supercomputer for efficiency. The pixel and light curve products are
modeled on the Kepler archive products and will be archived to the Mikulski Archive for Space
Telescopes (MAST). In addition to the nominal science data, the 30-minute Full Frame Images
(FFIs) simultaneously collected by TESS will also be calibrated by the SPOC and archived at
MAST.
Each 27.4-day period, TESS will observe a 24° by 96° swath of sky extending from ~6° above
ecliptic equator to the ecliptic pole in the anti-Sun direction. TESS rotates by 27.7° after each
observing “sector” in order to cover one hemisphere during the first year of observations. The
spacecraft then flips over to cover the other hemisphere during the second year. While most of
the stars are only observed for 27.4 days, the “pole” camera is centered on the celestial pole,
allowing a ~450 square degree area in each hemisphere to be observed continuously for a year.
The TESS pipeline will search through all light curves for evidence of transits that occur when a
planet crosses the disk of its host star. The Data Validation pipeline will generate a suite of
diagnostic metrics for each transit-like signature discovered, and extract planetary parameters
by fitting a limb-darkened transit model to each potential planetary signature. The results of
the transit search will be modeled on the Kepler transit search products (tabulated numerical
results, time series products, and pdf reports) all of which will be archived to MAST.
This paper provides an overview of the TESS science pipeline and describes the development of
the SPOC remaining before launch in August 2017. The data rate for TESS is 10X that of Kepler,
presenting challenges for keeping up with the 27-day cadence of observations for a mission
with 26 distinct fields of view. We describe innovations allowing us to scale the Kepler design to
meet TESS’s demanding requirements.
100 word summary
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will conduct a search for Earth’s closest cousins
starting in late 2017. TESS will discover ~1,000 small planets and measure the masses of at least
50 of these small worlds. The Science Processing Operations Center (SPOC) is being developed
based on the Kepler science pipeline and will generate calibrated pixels and light curves on the
NAS Pleiades supercomputer. The SPOC will search for periodic transit events and generate
validation products for the transit-like features in the light curves. All TESS SPOC data products
will be archived to the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.
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Speaker biography
Jon Jenkins is a research scientist in the Engineering Division at NASA Ames Research Center. He
has worked for over 22 years on developing science pipelines for transit surveys and related
technology test beds for projects such as the Kepler Mission and the Vulcan Project. He led the
design and development of the Kepler Mission’s science pipeline and is now leading the design
and development of the TESS Mission’s science pipeline. He received a PhD in electrical
engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.